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The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

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Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#81

Post by pjc50 »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #74
weego wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a surveillance pseudo-democracy. The problem here being this time they can't insert themselves into the surveillance pipeline. They're not better or worse (unless you're fine with your own Govt surveilling you but not another state), just not the status quo.

Surveillance isn't the primary issue. INFLUENCE OPERATIONS is. China's ability to direct content to achieve their strategic goals, and to do so at a very granular level, is too great a risk. Its not the only property with this capability (cough, 4chan/pol/, cough), but its by far the largest.

Aren't influence operations free speech?

(thread locked after 1,397,957 comments)

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#82

Post by krageon »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

We can't have rules that aren't governed by nationality, because the US basically only sees nationality. TikTok is called "an issue" not because of what it does, why it does it or how it does it. It is called that because of who is doing it. As such, we can expect all this racism couched in careful political language to continue and keep continuing.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#83

Post by lm28469 »

CyanBird wrote: post #32
lm28469 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The default should be not to ban entertainment It's only entertainment if you're completely blind. They're using our tolerance as a weakness, while themselves having absolutely 0 tolerance for western bs/propaganda in their home country This is next level "turning the other cheek"

> It's only entertainment if you're completely blind "I don't like it so it should be banned" That's such a low level engagement with the matter at hand, sadly these days is the level of discussion here in HN, sad to say that it seems astroturfed, but again, at this point what isn't, right?

I don't like it and it has measurable negative effects while providing 0 value besides brain washing teens *

Then they'll come crying because they don't understand why teenagers depression skyrocketed exactly at the same time as these types of social medias flourished

There are plenty of things people like which are banned, that's like the whole basis of living in organised societies....

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#84

Post by plgonzalezrx8 »

hnrodey wrote: post #65

Trump: TikTok is a national security threat! America: XENOPHOBE! Biden: TikTok is a national security threat. America: SHUT IT DOWN!

Call me whatever you want, but Trump had a LOT of things right. He was just massively inarticulate and his persona made it easy for people to disagree with him. But yeah, he tried to shut it down and the democrats just reverted everything just to say they reverted something trump did.

This report is nothing new and it has been known for a long time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-reverses-...

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#85

Post by refurb »

hvs wrote: post #25
soup10 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that US really wants to set a precedent of protectionism when so many large US technology companies operate globally.

The U.S. has a long, proud history of protectionism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...

Did you post the wrong link? It’s basically all about China’s trade protectionism and US attempts at stopping it.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#86

Post by luckylion »

nivenkos wrote: post #54

I hope the EU bans Facebook, etc. in response.

The US can probably replace TikTok with something "homegrown" that's sufficiently like TikTok that people will be happy to use it once it becomes widely adopted. What could replace Facebook, TikTok etc in Europe? Do we just shut down the internet because it's run by third parties who don't have our best interests at heart?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#88

Post by lm28469 »

Tenoke wrote: post #23
lm28469 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The default should be not to ban entertainment It's only entertainment if you're completely blind. They're using our tolerance as a weakness, while themselves having absolutely 0 tolerance for western bs/propaganda in their home country This is next level "turning the other cheek"

It's obviously entertainment. It could additionally be other things, how Top Gun is both entertainment and propaganda or bar drinking is both entertainment and has health risks. The math might come to the risks being higher than the benefits but pretending people aren't entertained by it ironically suggests that you might be more radicalized or brainwashed than TikTok users supposedly are.

> It's obviously entertainment.

it's not obvious to me at all, in France it's used by islamist organisations to push for communitarianism and separatism, I don't call that entertainment

https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/de-youtube-a-tiktok...

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/111122/ados-en-abaya...

https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2019/10/23/de-la-propa...

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#89

Post by mc32 »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

Targeting by nationality is how it works: Iran, Russia, N Korea, Venezuela, etc. Else it turns into whack-a-mole.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#90

Post by darkteflon »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

We can - and should - have robust privacy laws at home. We should also not roll over for our adversaries. China under Xi Jinping is, without a doubt, adversarial, and the risks are existential.
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